Conventional printers are capable of printing on many different types of media, including plain paper and transparencies. To compensate for the different media types, some printers employ different print modes to print on the different media. For example, the printers might apply different volumes of ink and print at different rates to achieve higher quality results for each media type.
Such printers rely on the user to select the correct media type when they print. When a transparency or glossy media is in the printer tray, the printer presumes that the user will select an option in the driver for printing on the transparency or glossy.
Unfortunately, many users are unaware of the need to select options for different media types. The users simply press a "print" button that defaults to a normal, plain paper print mode. While these normal settings are effective for plain paper, they are not optimal for other media types, especially transparency. Transparencies often require more ink for bright vibrant colors. In addition, printing on certain types of transparencies may require more time as compared to printing on plain paper, because the ink takes longer to sink in and dry on transparency. As a result, when a printer is set to a transparency option (perhaps from a previous print job), but plain paper is in the tray, the images printed on the paper are overly dark and wet.
Accordingly, there is a need to overcome this problem so that the printer need not rely on the user to elect an appropriate print option for the current media in the tray.